Motorola Advisor Gold Pager (1997) Teardown

Cracking Open the Motorola Advisor Gold pager (1997)

In the mid- to late-1990s, cellular phones were rapidly replacing pagers in the personal communication market. Still, it wasn't uncommon for people to have both a mobile phone (particularly in their car) and a pager. In 1997, I was such a person.

I had a phone in my car and carried this Motorola pager. Nearly 15 years later, I decided to dig it out of storage and crack it open. Follow along as I take a look inside the Motorola Advisor Gold pager (circa 1997).

Photo by: Bill Detwiler / TechRepublicCaption by: Bill Detwiler

Motorola Advisor Gold Pager (1997) Teardown: Back

Photo by: Bill Detwiler / TechRepublicCaption by: Bill Detwiler

Motorola Advisor Gold Pager (1997) Teardown: With case

Photo by: Bill Detwiler / TechRepublicCaption by: Bill Detwiler

Motorola Advisor Gold Pager (1997) Teardown: In belt case

Photo by: Bill Detwiler / TechRepublicCaption by: Bill Detwiler

Motorola Advisor Gold Pager (1997) Teardown: Case clip

Photo by: Bill Detwiler / TechRepublicCaption by: Bill Detwiler

Motorola Advisor Gold Pager (1997) Teardown: Still works

Even after nearly 15 years, this Motorola Advisor Gold pager still works--provided it had service.

Motorola Advisor Gold Pager (1997) Teardown: Completely disassembled

This Motorola Advisor Gold pager was a reliable device that served me well for many years. And, it's no wonder. After cracking it open, I found it to be well constructed and contain sturdy material. I only wish all current smartphones were as rugged.

Motorola Advisor Gold Pager (1997) Teardown: Case ring removed

Photo by: Bill Detwiler / TechRepublicCaption by: Bill Detwiler

About Bill Detwiler

Bill Detwiler is Managing Editor of TechRepublic and Tech Pro Research and the host of Cracking Open, CNET and TechRepublic's popular online show. Prior to joining TechRepublic in 2000, Bill was an IT manager, database administrator, and desktop supp...

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Full Bio

Bill Detwiler is Managing Editor of TechRepublic and Tech Pro Research and the host of Cracking Open, CNET and TechRepublic's popular online show. Prior to joining TechRepublic in 2000, Bill was an IT manager, database administrator, and desktop support specialist in the social research and energy industries. He has bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Louisville, where he has also lectured on computer crime and crime prevention.

I was working at a TI fab and had the pager clipped to back of the neckband. when I was down looking under the raised floor the pager took a gravity-induced "ride" to the sub-fab floor, about 25 feet, while I watched from above. A search down below turned up the battery, the pager with a "sprung" case, and a missing battery door. I snapped the case back together, replaced the battery and cycled it: worked perfectly! PacBell gave me a replacement door when I got back to CA and my tether worked for years. I bet that any of today's products would be scrap under similar circumstances.

Why haven't cell phone companies and pager companies worked together to integrate the pager into cell phones. This may revive the shrinking market for pagers...they are so much more reliable. I am also in the healthcare field and would definitely pay for something like this!!

This was my first pager, and I loved it (other than when it woke me up). Graduated to a two-way Motorola Pagewriter 2000X -- how about cracking one of those open?
Pager service being more reliable than cell texts must be a regional thing -- I finally gave up the pager for cell phone texts after a lightning storm and three-day total paging outage. When paging service came back, it was much less reliable than cell texts. I'm fairly sure the paging provider, who also provided cell service, decided that pagers were on the way out and stopped spending money on keeping the pager network robust.

Not only did I wear one of these for entirely too long, I used to repair several of the earlier generations. Most of the parts were repairable/replaceable with a steady hand and good soldering techniques. Pagers never transmitted, so you can safely refer to the metal cans as receiver parts. The one marked 17.9000 Mhz is almost certainly a crystal oscilator, though. What you refer to as the antenna board is almost certainly the receiver board. The other is certainly the main board, it was responsible for decoding the analog signal that was transmitted to it and driving the display. Motorola alway made solid hardware, although a few had known weak points, like the hinged clip on the back. I worked on a few that survived for years in an atmosphere loaded with sulfuric acid (a cellophane plant). Thanks for the memories.

Our agency still issues pagers instead of cell phones to most employees. I've had many of them over 14 years of employment. I even dropped one in a (clean) toilet and it still worked afterwards ... these things are just about indestructible.

After you wear one of the little buggers for so long you forget about them. Wore mine into the water, kind of funny to see the water sloshing around in the crystal window. Other than that, indestructible.

I noticed the "reward if found" sticker. Remember when the service provider would pay a reward if these things were found (dead or alive) and returned? Back in the day (1993??) I actually received a $50 reward for returning a lost pager to the service provider's store. The pager was apparently crushed by a car and the provider still accepted it.
Just a few weeks ago I found a smartphone in our 'hood. Out of curiosity I called the service provider. I was surprised to discover that they (AT&T) had no way to accept a lost phone, or give me the owner's contact information so I could contact them. They suggested I look through the phone's address book and call one of the owner's "friends". LOL! AT&T wouldn't let me contact the owner, but I was free to call their "friends". ??? My how times have changed. After some digging in the phone's address book I found the owner's home number and called them directly to return it.

'Started out with a "Bellboy", (Canada) in '70, (everyone thought that I was a Doctor) progressed to an in-car mobile in '71 until '90, and then back to another pager. Since 2000, a cell, & now a BB Bold 9700 - just like everyone else.
"If you can't communicate, why are you are in business."
10 more years with an other pager,

Given the ability of pages to get through even when SMS wont, what about a pager built into cell phones? Then cut/paste messages, numbers etc into the phone?
By the way, I had a similar pager. It looked a lot like the last picture when I finally got far too many calls to attend and meet customer expectations. (The wall helped me disassemble it...)

We switched to these pagers around 1997 from plain old numeric pagers. They were going to save us so much time on trying to find payphones to call the office back, etc.
Only thing, the office would usually page us with a simple "Call me" 90% of the time.

1996, I remember being out in the wilds of the Midwest when the blonde at the front desk sent me a page: "Here's a page to save...I think I love you". What a heart stopper.
Of course, now I have a smart phone and we are married - to other people.

Ok, so I have a Crackberry 9800, but I still use the Gold Advisor.
It has rock solid coverage where the phone doesn't always reach, and my voicemail and alarm system dialout to it and leave me messages as need be... I haven't found a method to replace the alarm panel notification yet... all the IP/email based methods don't have the high availability of the old POTS dialup network.

We still use them in health care. Pager services are cheap, cell phone services are not. On several occasions I have been tempted to crack it open using much less gentle means than you did, but I ended up just answering the damn page.

As a supplier to Moto back in the wild 80's & 90's its interesting to see one of these (other than the one in my desk) again. At the time these were mfg'd in the Motorola Boyton Beach Florida plant which has since been knocked down and I believe a strip mall or condos built on the sight. Thanks for the memories Bill!

As a supplier to Moto back in the wild 80's & 90's its interesting to see one of these (other than the one in my desk) again. At the time these were mfg'd in the Motorola Boyton Beach Florida plant which has since been knocked down and I believe a strip mall or condos built on the sight. Thanks for the memories Bill!

I'm not sure of the network, but I still carry a pager for the Coroners Office. I sometimes find myself in cell phone dead spots, but the message always gets thru to the pager. Then just find a spot where you have signal and call the number left on the pager.

Why haven't cell phone companies and pager companies worked together to integrate the pager into cell phones. This may revive the shrinking market for pagers...they are so much more reliable. I am also in the healthcare field and would definitely pay for something like this!!

Definitely "rock solid" as you say.. I remember writing code to automate sending text pages via 2400 baud modem to these things.. They were definitely the best ever. We SHOULD still use them.. I'd trade my crappy Blackberry for that any day..